completing the uncompleted

*blows dust off independentpjgirl.blogspot *

ah-chhhOooo!! ohman, what alot of dust.... *sniff*sniff*

well, it's been awhile since I last blogged eh? hehe.. during one of my mamak sessions last week, my friends were commenting about how dead my 'dead' blog has been.

*pooof* all of a sudden I just felt that even though I may not have the time/ inspiration to blog, I should just finish blogging about the Work & Travel episode of my life. not very nice to have things left hanging la...=)

exactly one year ago, at this time of the year, it was my last few days working for Anheuser Busch. travelling plans up north from Orlando to Washington DC and then to New York were already confirmed.

goodbyes were said to the place we called home for 3 months and as usual, goodbyes are never easy. it was a good thing we placed 'travelling' as the closure for our Work and Travel adventure because it really helped speed up the recovery from the 'goodbye syndromes'.

At Washington DC, I separated from the group because I stayed with my aunt and family who lives in Maryland, Annapolis (about an hour drive away from Washington DC). Well, I felt kind of sad to leave the group, yet excited to meet my long, lost, faraway relatives.

After only 2 nights at Peck-bee koko's beautiful house, I had to leave to meet the rest of the gang at New York. THREE CHEERS AND HURRAY for the Independentpjgirl (ME!) who braved herself and took the notorious yet surprisingly reliable GreyHound coach up to New York, ALL BY HERSELF! Clunging not only to my life but also my stuff (2 mega luggages and 2 hand luggages), I slept (and pretended to sleep) through the entire journey to prevent myself from thinking that I was going to get robbed/stabbed/shot by the really weird yo-yo people on the bus. Manz, I tell you..the yo-yo people, they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes!

As soon as I got off the Greyhound coach, I saw Seok Kheng and the rest of the gang all waiting for me at the New York bus station...wow..until today, i still don't know how to describe the feeling I felt at that moment when I saw their faces. It was like as if all of my 5 senses were triggered at one go!..haha..i just felt really, really relieved, happy, loved and most importantly ..SAFE!haha.. THANKS SEOKIE, WEIMING, JM, WL, SUEN and JF for saving me!

And that marked the beginning of our adventure in the Big Apple... Picture time!!



to the right, to the right!..brooklynn bridge!

kawaii des nehhhh~!

the famous bull at Wall Street

Doing the Donald Trump's Trumpet shaped lips

Ground Zero - emo

Yellow cabs, mega sized billboards, lights and action...Welcome to Times Square!

ohman! it's David Letterman!

Chillin' at Central Park

Like as if we really stayed on Fifth Avenue

Uptown Girls

History lessons for Bangla

Before Suen's parents came to visit us, we had no idea about the existence of St Augustine.

Thinking back, we must have been crazy!

If you ever go to Florida, don't ever miss out on visiting St Augustine, also known as the Ancient City or the Nation's Oldest City.

St Augustine has such a long history but I would try to explain briefly (hopefully accurately as well) so that you all won't get too bored. hehe!

Hundreds of years ago, a hot Spanish guy, Ponce De Leon, was on a quest to find for the Fountain of Youth. It was believed that anyone who drank the water from the fountain would never grow old.

In his search, Ponce de Leon stumbled upon the first city of Florida, St Augustine. Being a blurhead, he didn't know that he landed in North America, he thought he landed on some island that had lots of flowers. Also not very creative, he named the island 'La Florida' which meant 'Land of Flowers' in Spanish.

Because hundreds of years ago there was no such thing as DOTA, the old boys got bored easily and found joy sailing from one place to another to bomb and attack each other. Somehow the French boys managed to establish a fort in St Augustine, driving the Spain people out of their territory. And as usual, the Spanish people decided to fight back to protect their land and after bombing here and there, the French people got fried.

However, thats not the end yet. The Bristish people, who enjoy being in every history textbook, decided to cause some trouble and established colonies in Georgia and the Carolinas. To protect Florida from the Brits, Spain authorized the building of a stone fort which has a really u-la-la name, Castillo de San Marcos.

Don't ask me what happened after that cos we had to leave St Augustine which is 3 hours away from Orlando... and... if we were late Krispy Kreme would be out of Glazed Doughnuts. YUM!

haha..

Fountain of Youth

Bluff you-la, it was some random fountain

Castillo de San Marcos

Some locals that brought history out to life and some banglas that had no life.

The Old Schoolhouse - boring place



Looks like a cowboy town ya?


Ponce de Leon, founder of La Florida!!

Yo, Leon, how's tha weather up there??


Wax statutes that were rejected and left outside the shop

The lighthouse which we circled 3 times wishing for CAP 5

banglas get FREE entry into Universal Studios

The lyrics of the patriotic song 'America the Beautiful' :

America..America!!! From Sea to Shining Seaaaaa....

should be changed to

'America!America!! The land where banglas get everything FREEEE~!!'

haha..

As employees of Anheuser Busch, we get unlimited free entrance into Universal Studios, Busch Gardens and Seaworld. That's why after 3 months in Florida : The Land of Theme Parks, we Banglas, had an overdose of theme park rides and we slowly gained immunity towards even the scariest monster Roller Coasters.

Anyway, Universal Studios Orlando is divided into 2 different parks :

Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida

The attractions founds in Islands of Adventure brought the Marvel comics ( Spiderman, X-Men, Incredible Hulk), stories by Dr Seuss (Cat in the Hat) and Jurassic Park all out to life!

the gila Hulk roller coster!

out of no where got mist and water 'booooff!!' on your face!

jurassic park! another gila ride that gives you free showers!

Wet rides are cursed: if you say you don't want to get wet, you would surely get terribly wet!



stupids asians in action again : don't need to buy, take photo enough!

take photo still not enough...

must pose first then laugh-laugh-laugh until satisfied then only leave the shop..

Put yourself in a comic strip! Great photo effect..

Looks like i'm being pulled by the dog ya?Actually i'm standing like this looking very silly...

and i wasn't shouting 'Marmaduke!' ,

i was shouting

'BENSON! hurry up and snap the photolaaaa...people looking at me-LA!!!'...grrr..

Universal Studios Florida is where the attractions are based on TV shows and movies like Twister, Shrek, Mummy Returns and i can't remember what elsela..hehe..

Turkey Legs are sold as snacks in most theme parks. Because the drumstick is disgustingly huge, only the first few bites are yummy..after that you would start

feeling sick of the taste of meat..

eee...so unglam..

the whole set up in Universal Studios is really unique, as you walk you would feel as though you are walking down the streets of a movie setting.

So since we were kinda of like in a movie...we decided to have some fun posing to bring the settings and scenes alive! haha...

Waiting for Bus 143 to Orchard
Geng Mafia

OH! Must not forget Barney Land! haha... SK, JF and I actually queued up to watch the Barney Live Show whereby 70% of the audience were kids, 29% were parents and 1% were people who had very Barney deprived childhood (us included!)...haha..it was so funla!
Yap Eng Han and Yap Rou Jin!! this picture is for you!! Aye, Aye Captain!

dream come true for banglas!

Walt DisneyWorld ~ Where dreams come true ~

Our bangla dreams really did come true at this Magical place. We visited Disneyworld 4 times and managed to enter all 4 parks for FREE! Unbelievable but true!

How we did it? well, this time around, we used Stupid Asians Trick # 15 : You need lots of nerves. Stupid Asians Trick # 14 : Squeeze some tears, doesn't really work in this context.

Magic Kingdom

It all started from JF. She actually went up to the IRide bus driver and asked him if he had any relatives working for Disney ( Disney employees can bring in a total of 18 people into the park for free per employment year). By some luck, he really did and he was even nice enough to pick JF, SK & JM up and drove them into Disney! Don't worry, he wasn't some hamsap kwai um hai lam yan!..he is a living proof that nice people still do exist in this stinking world!

wink-wink-blink-blink

Anyway, at Disney, SK aka mafia made friends with a Hongkie student who was working as a cashier and with her 'wink-wink-blink-blink' skills, he fell head over heels and tadaaaaa...from that day onwards we had free access to Disney (and in future maybe Hong Kong Disneyland too). haha!

The 2 guys with specs are our new found Disney Hong Kong Friends

The Epcot Durian ..!

Their uniforms are so much cuter than my walking flower basket

Stupid Asians - Don't need to buy, just take photo



This is quite cool! Out of nowhere you can find pictures of Mickey painted out of water from water puddles

bangla goes wild!

Welcome to Everglades National Park, Naples

Yup! Stop rubbing your eyes~!

You are really seeing Suen's parents in the photos! Aunty & Uncle came to visit for 3 weeks. They were really happening! Travelling from one place to another, nonstop! Suen and I had to work so we couldn't really tag along with them..we only manage to follow them to Naples and St. Augustine

Naples is such a beautiful place! A small fishing town with hundreds of boats 'parked' at the Naples dock. Uncle enjoys fishing alot and he kept saying that it is his dream to own a boat just like the ones out at the docks.

At Everglades, we took the airboat into the mangroves swamps to get a closer look at nature and.....real life alligators.

the view ...wow~

I thought that eating alligator nuggets was part of the airboat package but it turns out to be that we only get to hold them in our hands, not chew them in our mouths.

Suen & I practiced carrying soft toy alligators before the real thing...haha

Thanks Aunty & Uncle for the wonderful trip to Everglades!

bangla goes to miami!

wohoOo...


Will Smith's 'We're going down my alley (miami), Bienvenidos a mi alley'
still rings in my head everytime i think about miami...

7 hours car ride from orlando to miami




Thank God we survived!...

WELCOME TO MIAMI!


Miami South Beach

ohwow! so pretty ya?

......i meant the girls..not the beach...haha

the cookie so big, but the coffee cup so small

crazy Ang-mohs!

cute cuban coffee aka cuban crack.

no, we didn't smoke no crack, it's called cuban crack cause the coffee is sooooo strong after drinking it you feel a lil crack..haha

we were so fascinated by the cute cup and wanted to snap pictures of it. on the other hand, the guy who ordered the coffee was so fascinated by us (stupid asians..haha) being so fascinated by the cup that he treated us to a free cup!

the old guy told us

'Ola, ola! if you haven't tasted a Cuban Coffee, you've never been to Miami!'

and so, all 11 of us stupid asians shared that one small cup of coffee..

(yuks.. the coffee tasted like cough medicine..so bitter! no wonder they give such a small cup.)

We stayed at Jazz Hostel for 2 nights. Nice small room with 3 bunk beds and a bathroom that has no ventilation (if you shower for too long you may die due to lack of oxygen).

We paid only USD 25 a night per person which was really cheap. No needla to stay in posh hotels because the average time we spent in the rooms was only about 6 hours. the rest of the time we are out causing chaos..and taking pictures of EVERYTHING!

and so that was Miami...

ok..ok..i cheated and left out alot of info about the trip but aiyo, nvmla k

next stop, EVERGLADES!